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A rapprochement between emotion and cognition: Amygdala, emotion, and self-relevance in episodic-autobiographical memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2012

Angelica Staniloiu
Affiliation:
Department of Physiological Psychology, University of Bielefeld, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany. astaniloiu@uni-bielefeld.dehttp://uni-bielefeld.de/psychologie/ae/AE14/HOMEPAGE/Markowitsch_home.html Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R8, Canada. hjmarkowitsch@uni-bielefeld.de
Hans J. Markowitsch
Affiliation:
Department of Physiological Psychology, University of Bielefeld, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany. astaniloiu@uni-bielefeld.dehttp://uni-bielefeld.de/psychologie/ae/AE14/HOMEPAGE/Markowitsch_home.html

Abstract

Lindquist et al. remark that not all fear instances lead to heightened amygdalar activity and, instead, point to roles of the amygdala in detecting “motivationally salient “or “emotionally impactful” stimuli. By reviewing research on the amygdala's functions in episodic-autobiographical memory, we further emphasize the involvement of the amygdala in coding the subjective relevance and extracting the biological and social significance of the stimuli.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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